Undoubtedly, democracy is in constant danger. The Athenian creation -later taken by the Latin American countries in the political-administrative figure of the Republic- has demonstrated not to be the best government model, but, the less evil, as expressed by an English politician when he saw that his empire era was coming to an end. And one of those defenders was the critical acid of the Vienna Circle and contemporary philosopher Karl Popper, who lived on his own flesh the mistakes of (...) democracy and the horrors of totalitarianism. Popper, defender of democracy to the limit, who even within his writings we can appreciate the paradoxes he sees in this, will not hesitate when the system of government of the people, for the people and the people, fall into the temptation to choose the dictatorship. For this, the philosopher tells us, democracy must create mechanisms so that this does not happen and we do not have a popular election that takes a demagogue and criminal to power, as was Hitler’s Germany. The thinking of the critical philosopher of historicism is liberal. An English liberalism and not as we understand it and we live in several States of America, where people is economic liberal and conservative in the ideas. No, Popper is liberal. A true liberal. (shrink)

The central merit of the Theory of the Complexity as a Method is the "relational thought". This is one of the distinctive characteristics in the work of Morin. The method consists of the learning of that relational thought. But the same method is not simply thought, but a general attitude tow..

The theoretical reliability of determinism. A review from the proposal of Mariano Artigas This article has two purposes. The first is to demonstrate that the theory of determinism, which claims to be based on the principles of experimental science, cannot be considered as an explanation compatible with such sciences. To do this, we use some ideas of Mariano Artigas on the explanatory power of scientific theories and their reliability from his book The Mind of the Universe. Through this process we (...) seek to achieve the second objective: to show the importance of the work of Artigas to dissolve complex contemporary debates, such as the current discussion about the existence of human freedom. (shrink)

Graphene is a nanomaterial with many promising and innovative applications, yet early studies indicate that graphene may pose risks to humans and the environment. According to ideas of responsible research and innovation, all relevant actors should strive to reduce risks related to technological innovations. Through semi-structured interviews, we investigated the idea of graphene as a risk held by two types of key actors: graphene researchers and innovation advisors at universities, where the latter are facilitating the movement of graphene from the (...) laboratory to the marketplace. The most common idea found is that graphene is not a risk due to, e.g., low toxicity, low amounts produced/used, and its similarity to harmless materials. However, some researchers and advisors also say that graphene is a risk, e.g., under certain conditions or due to a lack of risk-related information. We explain the co-existence of these seemingly contradictory ideas through the semantic ambiguity of the word risk and a risk/no-risk rhetoric, where risks are mentioned rhetorically only to be disregarded as manageable or negligible. We suggest that some of the ideas held by the researchers and innovation advisors constitute a challenge to responsible research and innovation regarding graphene. At the same time, we acknowledge the dilemma that the discourse of responsible innovation creates for the actors: denying graphene risks makes them irresponsible due to a lack of risk awareness, while affirming graphene risks makes them irresponsible due to their everyday engagement in graphene development. We therefore recommend more research into what researchers and innovation advisors should do in practice in order to qualify as responsible. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this paper, I argue that a number of influential Millian responses to Frege’s puzzle, which consist in denying that Frege’s data apply to natural languages, are not viable if logic is to play its role in legitimizing the logical appraisal of rational subjects. A notion of validity which does justice to the normativity of logic must make room for a distinction between valid inferences and enthymemes. I discuss the prospects of formal, relevant and manifest validity as candidates for (...) a notion which complies with this desideratum. Their success, or failure is argued to hang on the viability of a semantical account of de jure co-reference, which is in tension with standard Millian tenets. I conclude that these Millian theories face the following dilemma: either accept that there is no notion of logical validity which makes logic normative for reasoning, thus jeopardizing our well entrenched practices of rational appraisal; or accept that de jure co-reference is a real semantical relation. (shrink)

The concept of falsification, in general, has been studied at an abstract and meta-theoretical level in philosophy of science. The purpose of this paper is not to continue that procedure, but to establish an interdisciplinary analysis between philosophy of science and political science in a methodological perspective. The goal is to answer to the question: How do you put the concept of specification and the falsification process into practice in an empirical research in political science? In order to answer this (...) question, the paper is divided into three parts: the first explores the meaning of the falsification concept in Karl Popper; the second develops the meaning of the specification concept; and, finally, based on an article by Dirk de Bièvre, Falsification in Theory- Guided Empirical Social Research, and on a paper by Arndt Wonka, Concept Specification in Political Science Research, a practical reflection is made about the two aforementioned categories regarding their importance for social research. (shrink)